Asteady rise in market capitalisation in the past three years, coupled with stagnant corporate earnings, has pushed up the valuation of the broader market to an alltime high even as the benchmark indices like the S&P BSE Sensex and Nifty50 still look cheap, compared to their previous highs. A broader sample of large-, mid- and small-cap stocks are now trading at 30.5 times their combined net profit in the past 12 months.This valuation is nearly 30 per cent higher than the Sensex companies’ current price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 23.5. The index companies’ valuation had peaked at the trailing P/E multiple of 28 at the end of December 2007, a week before the start of the big 2008 market correction. The broader market was valued at 22x at the end of December 2007, or about a fifth lower than the benchmark indices.